Girls’ Last Tour Episode 12 (Final) Review: Connection – Friends

The last episode of Girls’ Last Tour was also the best one. The girls get an opportunity to take a glimpse into human civilization and learn more about their weird weapon-eating cat. What more could you ask for in a final episode?

Japanese Original Episode Title: 接続 / 仲間

Plot

After having spent some time around the submarine, and once more thanks to Nuko’s help, they girls magically manage to connect their camera to the submarine’s screens, and gain full access to all its folders. Not only do they discover pictures of Kanazawa with a girl, but also documentation of human civilization as they’ve never seen it before. After this rather emotional event, Yuu comes across a huge version of Nuko that doesn’t look as friendly and swallows her whole. Chi is terrified, but decides to use Yuu’s gun to find that massive phallic cat and get her friend back.

She follows the creature all the way outside the submarine, only to find it about to spit her back out, after having ingested her radio transmitter, to enable itself to talk. The cat then turns into a talking mushroom (…) and calls some of its friends, to sing a song that explains to the girls that the purpose of the phallic cat race is to consume unstable concentrations of energy… for some reason. They also inform them that the world is about to end soon and then they leave. Chi and Yuu continue their journey to the top level.

Episode Highlights

Light: This episode’s luminous illustrations were absolutely beautiful. These bright neon lights have been a common visual theme throughout the show, but I believe in this episode, thanks to the way the screens were lighting up the room, the effect was illustrated best.

Humanity flashback: Look at all the wonderful and horrible things humanity has achieved shining through the eyes of the two last survivors of the human race. I wonder if the world is really going to end up as a forsaken, cold, dystopian war zone.

Flying mushroom people: I mean, not pointing any fingers here, but… what drugs could have possibly led to the creation of a phallic-turning-flying-mushroom creature that goes around cleaning unstable energy? Who knows.

Yay flashback: We finally got to see how to girls used to live before having to run away as instructed by their grandpa.

SPIT HER OUT: I have to admit that having Yuu die by the end of the show was the very last thing I wanted to see, so her being swallowed by a massive tube cat was not the greatest urn of events.

Themes & Trivia

Parliament fight: Probably a reference to the infamous fight that broke out in the Japanese parliament in 2015 while debating a security bill that could see the military fight abroad for the first time in decades. I don’t know about you, but for me, parliament brawls are a guilty pleasure.

Hippies: For some reason, the hippies singing around the fire in the video archives are performing an Italian song (?!) Funiculi Funicula, originally written in a Neapolitan dialect in 1880, composed for the opening of the first funicular on Mount Vesuvius. A funicular is an inclined railway that goes up a steep slope like a mountain. One tram goes up while another one goes down on a cable. The funicular this song was celebrating was destroyed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1944. More about that here.

Chopin: The beautiful piano music playing in the background is Chopin’s Nocturn in E flat Major Op. 9. Chopin is one of my favorite piano composers (after Satie that is) and having watched Your Lie in April quite recently, it wasn’t hard for me to recognize it.

On to the highest level!

I do hope Girls’ Last Tour gets a second season – can’t say it’s the most exciting show to watch, but I would really love to know what is on that highest level the girls are desperately trying to get to.

What did you think of Girls’ Last Tour last episode? Let us know in the comment section below! And don’t forget to check the rest of the Fall 2017 anime reviews on MANGA.TOKYO!